Now I usually spend more time discussing issues related to steelhead fishing and spey rods. I however did grow up fishing the Deschutes for it's woonderful wild rainbows and I did spend three summers working at a fly shop on the Madison river trout so trout are not completely foreign to me. In my dealings intermediate fly anglers I have found that most peoples problems people have is not so much with their skill as it does with their knowledge.
More often than not beginning and intermediate level fly fishers show up at a location and just take whatever the circumstances have to offer. Sure they have leadned how to cast, learned how to read water, they know where they want to fish. They show up on the stream and have poor to moderate success. Their execution may be worthy of great fishing, their reach casts gave them excellent drifts over prime water but they came up empty handed so the write it off as the fishing just not being good that day. The truth however is that the fish were not active in that spot but more than likely were elsewhere.. The problem?? They had the right tactics but they had the wrong strategy.
I think most faulty strategies are the result of bad or missing information. Thats right I am talking about KNOWLEDGE!! A lack of knowledge can be just as deadly to a fishing trip as a lack of skill.
My strategy for trout fishing revolve around knowledge of trout behavior, some other peoples strategy is to exploit their intimate knowledge of a particular stream or species. Both strategies are very effective as are many others.
Some people tailor their strategies it illicit particular results for instance some people like cathing big fish so their strategy is to be at the big fish locations at times when large fish are the most vulnerable. Quite often streamers are their choice because they know that big fish often eat little fish even when they aren't actively feeding.
To other people cathing fish on dry flies is the most important thing so all their fishing activities are planned to coincide with various hatches and being prepared with patterns to imitate emergers, cripples, duns and spinners.
Other people just want to catch lots of fish so they use the knowledge that trout feed underwater 90% of the time so their strategy is to cover lots of water fishing nymphs showing it to as many fish as they can. they also know that when the weather os hot they can expect behavioral drift to provide very good nymph fishing at very first light.

My own personal strategy is to have fun and I like to explore So my strategy is to hit the highlights each day has to offer in the early morning i might be on a large free stone streamer fishing for browns and around 9 am head for a spring creek for the peak of the PMD hatch then at 1 head up into a meadow stream for some terrestrials then back down to the freestone to swing softhackles during the evening caddis emergence

anyone have any personal strategies they'd be willing to share or just any general thoughts on the Strategy VS tactics issue???

Rob, tactics & strategy are like ying & yang to me. One determines the other. For instance approaching a stream, the strategy is to observe what is going on. Can I watch fish from somewhere before starting to fish? What type of insects or bait fish can I see? Are there rises. if so what type. These lead to deciding what tactics I will use, and in turn what strategy I use to get into the proper position to present.

Then again every once in a while I say the heck with it I'm fishing a dry regardless. those are the days that are likely to end up fishless.